Campaigners fighting to retain Arbroath Library as part of the town’s common good have claimed an initial victory.
An independent councillor scored a vote win in the fight against plans to transfer the building to Angus Council’s general fund.
The authority believes the 1898 library, a gift to Arbroath by benefactor David Corsar, should be part of the general account, having been acquired for a statutory purpose. Officials say it has been wrongly on the common good account for half a century.
Arbroath member Bob Spink has led the library campaign and at a full meeting of the council in Forfar on Thursday evening he won overwhelming support for a motion that places emphasis on gathering evidence as to why it should not remain on the common good.
The official recommendation to councillors was to agree that information should be sought as part of a public consultation which might prove the property should be classified as common good.
Mr Spink said the difference in the wording was small but significant and he vowed to fight a move he called “corporate theft.”
That description was described as “ridiculous” by council leader Bob Myles, and he accused the independent of having privately admitted he was misquoted over the use of that term an allegation Mr Spink swiftly rebuked.
“If you take something that does not belong to you, that is theft. If a corporation does that then it is corporate theft and I do not withdraw my view on that,” said Mr Spink.
He had sought the advice of Lord Fraser of Carmyllie, who served as both Scotland’s solicitor general and lord advocate, and another prominent legal figure and they both shared his view that the library had been gifted to Arbroath for the good of the town.
“The benefactor’s intent was quite clear and the town council required to do nothing other than accept the gift,” added Mr Spink. “It insults the donor without whose admirable intention there would not have been a library in Arbroath as we know to consider taking this away from the common good.
“There is a principle at stake here which strikes at the heart of the common good of burghs all over Scotland.”
But while Mr Spink received unanimous support from his Arbroath council colleagues on the common good question, Alliance figure Jim Millar was critical of the “excitable and hysterical run-up” to the Forfar debate.
However, Arbroath Alliance councillor Peter Nield said: “This council cannot take back what was given to the people of Arbroath.”